


Brotherly Love

by rosabelle



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosabelle/pseuds/rosabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to some botched vacation plans, Joshua's stuck in South Dakota and Claudia's two brothers finally meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brotherly Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tptigger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/gifts).



> When does this take place, you ask? In some magical time frame where season three happened and the beginning of season four happened but the middle and end of season four don't happen, that's when.

"It's not _not_ South Dakota," Claudia said, "but... we do have a view?"

"Of?"

Nothing, mostly.

And cows, sometimes.

"Oh no," she said, and shook her head. "No no. This is _so_ not the part where you make me feel guilty. This is the part where you say 'Claud, I know we were gonna go to Hawaii for a week until you got a ping and sure, it sucks that our tickets were nonrefundable but that's okay, I didn't want to fly over a volcano in a helicopter anyway, and what really matters is spending time with you.'"

Joshua gave her a long look. "I'm not sure I can remember all that."

Claudia threw a pillow at him.

"Okay, okay." He caught it, and set it gently beside him on the couch. "How was your ping?"

"Ping was good," she told him. "Very... pingy."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Let me guess," he said. "Cleopatra? Galileo? JFK?"

"Thomas Edison's last breath."

Joshua laughed, then paused. "You're not joking, are you."

Claudia rearranged herself in her chair. "Nope."

"That's... so creepy." He touched his throat and winced, mimicking the expressions Pete had made when he'd heard. "What did it _do_? Wait. Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"You get used to it." She shrugged. "And no one got whammied."

It was strange, how they only ended up weirdly attached the ones that nearly killed them. 

Joshua had made a joke, earlier, about visiting Rheticus's compass before he went. To her surprise, they'd both laughed.

In the brief lull, the front door of the B and B opened. Over the sound, she heard Steve's voice, raised in exasperation. "—not going to say it."

There was a pause, some words Claudia couldn't understand at this distance but recognized as belonging to Pete, and then Steve let out a sigh and a reluctant sounding, "Spock out."

She snorted.

Joshua raised an eyebrow. "Should I even ask?"

It wasn't actually even that far-fetched of an idea, a Star Trek related Artifact. She'd thought of it before, and it was one of the things she kept an eye out for. No luck on that front, but at least there'd been that time she'd gotten to play Jimi Hendrix's guitar. That was her favorite Artifact to date, and not just for the guitar.

That had been an interesting night.

Though she felt a _little_ bad about the whole Artie Tesla-ing Steve thing.

Joshua was still waiting for an answer.

"Pete," Claudia told him. "He says 'Kirk out' a lot. Steve's humoring him. Sometimes it's just easier."

"Ohh," Joshua said. "Steve. The one I'm supposed to meet."

"Yeah," she said. "That's the one."

That was cool. That would be fine. They'd established early on that Steve was really, _really_ not her boyfriend. It would've been easier to explain a boyfriend. Her partner turned BFF turned sort of adopted brother was a little more complicated, but what about her life wasn't complicated? 

And that was before they got into the little details like the metronome. Soulbonding: not actually fun, but it had done its job.

She just... needed Joshua to like Steve, and Steve to like Joshua.

Steve's footsteps sounded in the hall. "Hey."

"Hey," she said, shifting to face him as he entered the living room. "How're Pete and Myka doing?"

She didn't envy them. Sure, she hadn't been thrilled to go flying off to Indianapolis instead of Maui the night before, but hey, better there than Alaska. South Dakota was cold enough.

"Pete says Myka wouldn't let him go sledding." He paused, head tilting as his eyes landed on her brother. Claudia turned again and saw him greeting Steve with the Vulcan salute. "You must be Joshua," he said. "I see the resemblance already."

"What can I say?" Joshua shrugged. "Our mother was a fan. Where do you think Claudia got it from?" He stood, coming around the living room to shake Steve's hand. "Joshua Donovan."

"Steve Jinks."

"Jinksy," Claudia said. "We call him Jinksy."

"Thanks for that." Still holding onto Joshua's hand, Steve gave her a look. 

"So welcome," she said, and stood too. "Thanks for finishing up at the Warehouse. I owe you one."

"Anytime," he said. "So I'm guessing that the two of you sitting around here means that the vacation is a no go?"

"Yeah," she said. "Missing our flight plus booking new, same-day flights? Way expensive. So now the Donovan family vacation is more like... Joshua coming all the way from Switzerland to have lunch with me. My bad."

"Don't worry about it," Joshua said. "I didn't want to fly over a volcano in a helicopter, anyway."

"That's the spirit." She glanced at Steve. "Want to join us? I think Artie made cookies. Chocolate chip."

"He's branching out."

"Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks," she said. "I'm going to get one, actually. Jinksy, Joshy. With me."

"Joshy?"

"New nickname," she said over her shoulder. "Sounds better with Jinksy."

She wasn't sure which one of them sighed.

The cookies were on a plate in the kitchen, still warm from the oven. She took one, then passed the plate to Joshua, who passed it to Steve.

The cookies were just the right blend of crisp and chewy, the dark chocolate chips a nice contrast to the sweetness. Claudia snagged another one. Artie was going to have to make these again sometime soon.

They were mostly silent as they ate.

So.

That was a little awkward.

It could've been worse.

She'd definitely known awkwarder.

But really, they were off to a good start, she thought, chewing more slowly on the second cookie. They'd just met, and they hadn't even talked yet. She'd just have to get them to spend a little more time together.

"Anyone up for a movie?"

"How's your DVD collection?" Joshua asked. He knew enough to look a little afraid.

"Healthy," she said. "Very healthy. So healthy it's possibly a little unhealthy, actually. Have you seen Battlestar Galactica yet?"

Joshua gave her a blank look.

"It was on the list I gave you."

"You've never seen it?" Steve asked him.

"Alternate dimension," he reminded them. "Long time. And when Claudia says list, she means she gave me an actual list of what she considers to be essential pop culture. And it's long."

"You're right," she said. "I'm a terrible person for wanting you to experience the early twenty-first century to the fullest."

"I do have a job, you know," he said. "A very demanding job. Not a lot of free time."

"Excuses, excuses," she said. "You don't see me complaining. Have you at least seen Lord of the Rings?"

"Yes, okay," he said. "I saw them. All of them. Director's cut, even."

"Thaaaat's my Joshy."

"Is this going to be a thing now?" he demanded.

"Probably." Steve gave him a sympathetic glance, then passed the plate towards him. "Here. Have another cookie. You'll get used to it."

Claudia ignored him and motioned for the plate back. Joshua held onto it. "Hey," she protested. "No hoarding."

"Maybe we should save the cookies for the movie and eat real food?"

"Why?" But when she snagged the plate out of his hands, she set it on the counter. "Leena went shopping yesterday. There should be plenty of groceries."

In the end, Joshua cooked. It wasn't like she _couldn't_ , and it wasn't like grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup were some kind of never before seen culinary feat (though, okay, now it was like Joshua coming all the way from Switzerland to make lunch _for_ her which was even more ridiculous and she was totally going to pay him back for those tickets and someday they were _actually_ going to go on a proper vacation... where, presumably, she would run into something strange as soon as she arrived because she'd seen that movie ), but it brought back memories to watch him. 

It was hard to explain Steve, but it was even harder to explain Joshua, because he was the same age in her stories as he was now. She wondered what Joshua told people about her. 

Someday she'd ask him, maybe.

For now, she sat in her chair watching one brother while the other sat beside her.

"So... you work at CERN?"

"Yeah." Joshua half-turned away from the stove, spoon in hand. "How much do you know about particle physics?"

"Not... much."

The part of physics they were best at was defying it. Joshua had a lot of questions about that, especially when she talked about travel. They'd gotten from South Dakota to China in _how_ many hours? What Artifacts were they using? What did they do and how did they work? In return, he told her the interesting bits of his work as they applied to computers and the internet. Things she understood.

"Get comfy," she told Steve and then took her own advice, leaning back in her chair and resting her feet on the one beside her. "We're going to be here awhile."


End file.
